


Tainted Soil

by TeamThor



Category: What We Do in the Shadows (TV)
Genre: Angst, Backstory, Blood Drinking, Canon Compliant, Character Turned Into Vampire, Hurt Nandor, Hurt No Comfort, Nandor dies but not really, Other, Vampire Bites, Vampire Turning, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:27:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25895167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeamThor/pseuds/TeamThor
Summary: Nandor tells the tragic story of his turning
Comments: 21
Kudos: 44





	Tainted Soil

**Author's Note:**

> my second wwdits fic! this fandom has been so loving and encouraging, so hopefully i'll get more fics done for it. here's a short piece of nandor angst, helped greatly by the best beta reader ever @unraveledwords. check out their nandermo fics for a good time

He woke to the feeling of rain upon his skin. 

A damp, icy coldness soaking into the fur of his collar, droplets finding their way through cracks in his armour and leeching the warmth from his skin. 

Birds circled overhead, diving out of the mist above to claim what the battle had left behind. A ruffle of feathers yanked his mind further towards the light of consciousness - a raven perched at his feet, head cocked in confusion at what lay before it. The line between the alive and the dead had not yet been crossed, but the bird knew that it would not be long before Nandor the Relentless left the land of the living. 

He had frowned, shaking his foot to send the bird back to the skies, and thought nothing more of it. 

The battle had been long and arduous, more than most. Although, tired as he was, he fancied it a testament to his title. Relentless - another battle had been won: the battlefield soil soaked in blood from the enemy forces, brown and fertile earth turned red and scorched. 

Nothing would grow here anymore. It would be left barren, decades passing before the smallest blade of grass dared to mark the ground again.

But that was the way of it, he supposed. There would always be casualties, reminders, names of the fallen etched in stone and bones cast to rest at the bottom of the ocean. 

One of those names could have been his. Should have been his, if his position was anything to go by. It was not often a lord of battle fell and then rose again when the camps were empty and the survivors had left. It would’ve been enough to sting him, being left behind, if that had not been what his men were taught to do. 

Those who fell behind, were left behind. 

And he had fallen. A warrior, although not one wearing the colours of his enemy, had sprung upon him from behind and sunk his teeth into his neck - which was a pretty unorthodox method of attacking, but Nandor had felt some respect for the confidence that maneuver took. 

One bloodied hand rose to trace the wound on his neck - and drew away sharply with a hiss as he was met with a stinging pain. It was more akin to plunging his fingers into a firepit than any other wound he had received before - and the rest of him felt...cold. Not from the rain or from the end of battle, but a cold that clung to his bones and seeped into his chest. 

That probably should have tipped him off that something was wrong - but situational intelligence had never been his strong suit. 

His men followed him because of his relentless...ness. His tenacity. His ability to plunge into conflict and come out on top without fail, without one black mark on his record. They did not follow him for worries or doubts. That was how great men fell - when they began to question themselves. Because if they questioned themselves then the men who followed them would do the same. Questioning led to demanding led to yelling - and it was all a bit of a headache that Nandor was more than happy to avoid. 

So he picked himself up. He moved along, picking his way through the corpses and the mud and did not worry over why his men had not come back to collect him. 

He did not worry, even when the fire in his wound began to spread through his veins, leaving him collapsed and shivering on the roadside. 

He did not worry, even when his jaw began to ache and the rays of sunshine seemed to burn his skin. 

He did not worry, even when all the water in his canteen could not sate his thirst. Or when the food he hunted turned to ash in his mouth. 

He kept walking until the ground under his feet began to feel more familiar. Until the air smelt of home, his home, and the doors of his palace opened under a push from his palm. 

Maybe he relented a little bit then. Once he was home, and he could rid himself of the bloodstained clothes that clung to his body. His servants would remove each piece of armour from his aching shoulders, and one of his more favoured wives would wash the blood and dirt from his hair and soothe the aching in his muscles. 

He had rested for days after that. The physicians had kept calling it unnatural, until he had sent them away so that he could have a few minutes of precious silence. 

Everyone had wanted something, in those days. His men wanted an explanation for his return - they wanted to know how a man could fall in battle and arise again the next day. His wives wanted to know how he was doing - why he was sleeping day in and day out, why he would not eat with them, or attempt to cool his fever with wine or water. 

He had no answers for them. At least, no answers that he understood. 

He had fallen in battle, he knew that. But he hadn’t...Fallen, fallen. He hadn’t died - and that seemed like the sort of thing he would remember. He’d simply taken a nasty hit, and had dealt with it the way all men in Al Quolanudar dealt with injuries. 

The pain faded, eventually. Or morphed into something else. Sunlight burned and not just in the way that would result in itchy skin and mild discomfort. The one time he had allowed his hand to stray in front of an open window, it had burst into open flame, and he’d spent the rest of the day ordering scarves to be hung over every opening to the skies his bedchamber had. 

The hunger was proving more difficult to assuage. He would push it down for as long as he could but eventually something in his mind took over. 

It was servants, at first. He’d awoken from a sleep he didn’t remember entering to blood on his hands and face, caked under his nails, and a body in his lap. 

Nandor had killed many men in his lifetime. Being the leader of a nation, a conqueror of thousands - it took spilling a couple of gallons of blood to earn the reputation of Nandor the Relentless. And dying in battle was an honourable thing - it was the way he wanted to go, if he had to go at all. The soldiers who fell to his sword died in glory. 

There was nothing glorious about this. 

People started to leave, after that. Killing a servant was something that most noblemen could get away with, but Nandor got the sense that those around him were using this as an excuse. Men who would’ve followed him into any battle, who would’ve died for him, now packed their bags and called him a monster. 

His soldiers left, his wives left, and he was alone again. 

Dying on a silk lined bed, it seemed, was no warmer than dying alone on a battlefield. 

Remaining relentless didn’t seem like much of a priority when the mob arrived. His people waved their torches and his soldiers brandished their weapons - and while he was angry, he couldn’t say he blamed them. 

When his palace crumbled to the ground, he was almost grateful. He’d spent the best years of his life there. Rising through the ranks of the Al Quolanudarian forces, claiming a title and forcing thousands to bend to his will, making nations across the vast ocean afraid of his name. He’d drank wine with friends, he’d had 37 weddings, and countless celebrations of victory in those halls. 

But when it burned, all he could think about was the past few weeks. Wandering the empty halls, alone. Watching as the food he could not eat decayed before his eyes, and feeling the familiar itch of an unnatural hunger grip his stomach again and again. 

It had been his destiny to die on a battlefield. And part of him had. Whatever was left died when he left Al Quolanudar for the last time.

***

Nandor shut the book of memoirs with a sharp sigh, turning to face the camera. 

“And that is why you should always wear a neck covering when getting involved in a skirmish. Otherwise someone might take a nibble of you.” 

Guillermo choked out a gasp from between his fingers, sinking slightly against the wall. 

“Master,” he sniffed, rubbing at his eyes under his glasses. “What the fuck.”


End file.
